International: Blonde AmbitionSweden can be an inspiration to labour movements the world over, as it has had community unionism for over 100 years, creating a vibrant caring society, rather than a "productive" lean economy.

Training: The Trade OffNext time you go looking for a skilled tradesman and can’t find one, blame an economist, writes John Sutton.

Review: Bore of the WorldsAn invincible enemy has people turning against one another as they fight for survival – its not just an eerie view of John Howard’s ideal workplace, writes Nathan Brown.

Poetry: The Beaters Medley In solidarity with the workers of Australia, Sir Paul McCartney (with inspiration from his old friend John Lennon) has joined the Workers Online resident bard David Peetz to pen some hits about the government's proposed industrial relations revolution.

Feds Make Asbestos Blue

An electrician who blew the whistle on the threat of deadly asbestos during the refurbishment of Sydney’s recently re-opened Hilton hotel has warned the action taken to protect safety could be illegal under the Howard governments planned workplace laws.

"If we lost the use of the state Industrial Relations Commission it would be a lot harder to get the result we achieved," says electrician Dean Storey, who was presented with a safety achievement award by Commerce Minister John Della-Bosca for his campaign to clean up the Hilton job.

"It would have been illegal for us to withdraw our labour on safety grounds."

Storey took on construction giant Leightons over their liability to pay workers for time lost on the job after WorkCover shut the site down while asbestos was removed.

Leightons had refused to cough up the cash, but Commissioner O'Neill of the NSW Industrial relations Commission found they had to pay up.

The win for the workers on the Hilton job set an important precedent in taking the onus for dealing with key safety issues off subcontractors and shifting it instead to principle contractors.

"It takes away the contractors being the meat in the sandwich,' says Geoff Prime from the ETU.

Storey was present at the Sky Channel hook up at Coogee on July 1 and addressed 600 workers about his experience at the Hilton refurbishment job and what the changes to workplace laws mean.

He's now active in passing on the word to workplaces across Sydney about what people are likely to lose under the IR Changes.